Firestorm Viewer Information

There is a lot of things happening. More will be happening in the coming few weeks. Chances are really good that something you used to do a specific way is going to change. There is a good chance you will also be seeing some odd behavior in Second Life™. Things won’t work the same.

A great source of quick answers for Firestorm Viewer users is Lette’s Trivia and Trivial Stuff blog. Lette has a new article up listing the questions most heard by the Firestorm Support Group: Frequently Asked Support Questions: April 23.

If you have an ATI video card, there is a problem with black screens in Firestorm 4.4.0. They have the fix posted.

Avatar Offset

There is a longer explanation of the Height Offset that has been removed from the SL System, not just the Firestorm Viewer, in Lette’s article. The FS Team did remove the control. They expected to get lots of blowback from that and they have. But, it can’t be helped.

However, they did get Nyx Lindens quick fix for the problem added to their appearance editor. You can see how to use that here: Firestorm Height Adjustment. It sucks… not FS… the system fix. I wrote about the problem in: Second Life Avatar Offset. Check it for what you can do to get a usable offset back.

Hidden Buttons

Can’t find some user interface buttons? The answer is there. The team made some changes and added the possibility to modify the user interface in new ways. There is a nice how to in Lette’s article.

Firestorm Viewer 4.4.0 (33720) Released Review

I got a couple of things wrong in the previous article. The idea it was only for the SL grid was not right. This release has a version for the OpenSim grids. You can see the highlights of that release on the announcement page: Firestorm Major Upgrade.

Another point on the announcement page is information about the effort that has been put into providing an upgrade path for Phoenix users.

[youtube sM3-yQVDEw]

This video runs a little less than 8 minutes.

The video warns that you will have a slow start because they have flushed all the caches.

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Firestorm 4.4.0 On the Way

Update: The viewer has been released as 4.4.0 (33720) today about 3 PM SLT or PDT. Download: Firestorm Major Update.

I’ve been hearing rumors that a new release of the Firestorm Viewer is imminent. Some expected it Sunday. Some are saying today. We will have to wait and see when it releases. I expect it soon, like today. But, that could be wishful thinking on several people’s part.

But, we do not have to wait to see what is in this release. As part of a release the development team builds release notes. The team tries to do things professionally and have everything ready for users, including the viewer’s release notes. It usually is not too hard to find those once one knows a release is imminent.

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Wackadoodles

These wackadoodle people show up in so many places… it gets infuriating. I see where Jessica Lyon responded to one in the Firestorm Viewer blog. I mention this because I am impressed by her statesman like response. Well done Jessica.

The blog article is announcing the re-opening of the Firestorm Viewer’s Preview Group. This is a group that will get Firestorm’s Beta version of their viewer. The team wants people that will help them test the viewer before it goes to main release.

Just as the Lab rolls server updates to 30% of the main grid for testing in a more diverse environment so too, the FS Team needs a larger selection of equipment and driver versions running their viewer before making a final release.

So, if you are interested in helping the team, check out: Feeling Brave? If you are NOT willing to file JIRA bug reports, please don’t bother.

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Viewers Update 2013-10

It has been a while since I took a look at a number of viewers. Rather than post them separately, I’ve lumped them together, except for Nirans. I had not used it for months, so I expected lots of changes.

SL Viewers

The main Linden Viewer is still at version 3.4.5 (270263), pre CHUI (Chat Hub User Interface). I seldom use the Beta Viewer now. It is more of a fall back viewer for when a Development Viewer version has problems. This morning the Beta is at version 3.5.0 (271345). The Development Viewer had been at version 3.5.1 (270826) for about 10 days. Today it updated to 3.5.1 (271386).

I am still fighting with the CHUI update to keep it the size I WANT IT. Other than sizing problems I like the new CHUI. The new build 271386 seems to have some of the sizing problems fixed.

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